In the world of marketing, there are several principles at play. One of them, stated in various ways, states that while the use of branding techniques cannot guarantee success at the sales level of any brand, ignoring branding principles and techniques does guarantee failure. One of the most important battlefronts in the digital market in which we move daily is, precisely, Sonic Branding.

It is, in short, the strategic and consistent use of sound to increase the equity or value of the brands. To tell the truth, the use of Sonic Branding falls on how we all human beings relate to reality. We are highly visual, olfactory, but, above all, auditory beings. There are a plethora of sounds related to important functions of life that immediately produce sensations, ideas, and feelings in the human mind. To this extent, marketing techniques have taken advantage of this feature of our brains to deliberately construct a series of characteristics that allow a customer to identify, recognize, differentiate, remember, and create emotional links with competing brands out there, in the market.

Essentially, the main purpose of this series of sounds is to work in a complementary and synergistic way with the visual elements that make up the brand's corporate identity, such as the logo or the range of colors that distinguish the goods and services it offers. In fact, audio branding initiatives must go hand in hand with visual branding efforts since images and audio must support each other to build a coherent brand strategy.

An audio logo played in perfect sync with a visual, animated logo is an excellent example of this - think, for instance, of the Netflix logo and its effect on your brain. The overall emotional impact and memorability are significantly increased.

The sounds that constitute Sonic Branding are built following the same creative guidelines that a graphic designer puts into practice but in the realm of sound: a different and tremendously complex language. Once the Sonic Branding is developed, the brand has at its disposal lengths and sections of voice, in addition to other acoustic elements, which are there to be used with complete freedom in the advertising media as significant marketing tools. To this extent, we find elements such as Audio Logos, soundscapes, brand voices, or jingles, among others, which allow the existence of a sound story that identifies a brand with its standards and thus provides added value.

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One of the main reasons why you should consider the importance of Sonic Branding is the brand recall. A company needs to stand out from the competition, of course, but first, it needs to make itself known among the public. People must remember your brand and associate it with the satisfaction of a need, as well as with a specific emotion if you want to sell something. Sound elicits emotional responses, in some cases, more effectively than visuals, and memory is known to have a direct relationship with emotions. Think of one of the most nostalgic moments of your life. If you compare it with the memory of what you had for lunch on Tuesday last week, you will notice that emotions help to fix memories. Hence, the right use of a sound logo can help your brand recall: if your customers listen to the sound of a piece of music, by doing so, you can stimulate the sections of their brains associated with memory.

Once your brand offers an experience that meets the customer's expectations, an adequate recall will then allow your audience to be loyal. Choosing a brand sound that matches your company's values can positively affect how consumers feel and can even increase their loyalty to your brand. On the other hand, the use of inappropriate audio branding could harm the consumer's perception of your brand. Any audio used in conjunction with your brand, from product sounds to in-store background music to branded videos, defines and shapes how consumers perceive you on an emotional level. A strategic approach to sound can also make businesses more appealing to consumers.

Another important reason for the use of Sonic Branding is the current relevance of sound in information consumption. Far from what many people may have thought in previous decades about the demise of radio, today, people have not stopped listening to and following stations while driving home every day after work. People download and use streaming music apps on a massive scale, and consume sound publications that did not exist before, podcasts. Audio advertising is still relevant today, and, for this reason, Sonic Branding is still a necessity for brands to exist and expand.

Finally, Sonic Branding can be one of the added values of your brand simply because tons of small and medium-sized organizations have not yet paid enough attention to this issue and are unaware of its great potential.

*The images used on this post are taken from Pexels.com